China Terror Alert

The US embassy in Beijing issued the following email travel alert for all US residents and visitors in China (h/t to AmCham Daily):

There is a heightened risk that extremist groups will conduct terrorist acts within China in the near future. In light of these security concerns, citizens traveling in China are advised to use caution and to be alert to their surroundings at all times, including at hotels, in restaurants, on public transportation and where there are demonstrations and other large-scale public gatherings. Consistent with our standard advice, American citizens are urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations.

I spent most of yesterday in Jinan meeting with people from the Shandong Province Ministry of Justice and then more than five hours on a bus going from Jinan to Qingdao. I had been scheduled to take a fast train to Qingdao, but the recent crash on the Qingdao-Beijing line (in Zibo, where co-blogger Steve Dickinson lived for a couple of years) caused the trains to shut down. All of the Chinese people with whom I talked in Jinan and in Qingdao intially blamed the crash on terrorists.

The train crash ended up having nothing to do with terrorism, but obviously there is a heightened awareness of that threat in China these days. For all of us.

Comments

"All of the Chinese people who expressed an opinion regarding the crash yesterday blamed it on terrorists. "

Are you serious, Dan?

Posted by: Pffefer | April 29, 2008 3:04 PM

The state media is now saying the crash involved two trains. The first train was going way too fast, causing a derailment of its rear cars. The second, oncoming, train collided with those rear cars on the track.

Posted by: robert | April 29, 2008 9:22 PM

From what initial reports say of the way the Jinan Railway Bureau was run, it may as well have been terrorists...

Posted by: Dezza | April 30, 2008 12:52 AM

I guess everyone who has ever lived in China knows this, but it's worth saying again:

1) There is a degree of paranoia in the ex-pat community that comes out at such times, anyone who was in China for SARS will remember this - I am inclined to discount such warnings.

2) Embassies are very much afraid of being held responsible for not issuing warnings where danger might exist - CYA is a definite phenomenon.

3) The risk of a terrorist attack would have to be pretty huge to outweigh that posed by crossing the road or taking a taxi in China.

4) You are at far more risk of suffering from a terrorist attack visiting London, where I am right now, than you are in any Chinese city outside of Xinjiang and possibly Tibet.

5) Judged simply by the number of people killed in various incidents over the last 20 years, you are in fact at more risk of receiving direct harm from the Chinese government than you are from terrorist groups.

6) That staying away from demonstrations and not displaying foreign flags on the street is just a measure of common sense in a country like China.

Posted by: FOARP | April 30, 2008 2:56 AM

That reminds me of the US not too long ago.

Posted by: Anonymous | April 30, 2008 7:04 AM